Netflix Greenlights Dutch Pot Drama With Famke Janssen, French Murder Thriller With Isabelle Adjani

Netflix on Tuesday unveiled two new European series with A-list stars, announcing the Dutch crime drama Amsterdam Empire to star X-Men alum Famke Janssen and an unnamed French thriller series toplined by gallic veteran Isabelle Adjani (Camille Claudel, The Story of Adele H.).

Janssen will star and executive produce Amsterdam Empire, about a big-time cannabis dealer whose personal betrayal of his wife threatens the future of his pot imperium. Nico Moolenaar, Bart Uytdenhouwen and Piet Matthys, creators of Netflix Dutch crime series Undercover, created the new show, which Jonas Govaerts (H4Z4RD) will direct. The plot follows Jack van Doorn, the rich and notorious founder of the Jackal coffee shop empire in Amsterdam, who has an affair with a well-known journalist, drawing the ire of his wife Betty, who is looking for payback and knows all Jack’s dirty secrets. Pupkin Film will produce Amsterdam Empire together with A Team Productions.

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Janssen, whose international breakthrough was playing Xenia Onatopp in Bond film GoldenEye (1999) was seen most recently alongside Bill Skarsgård in Moritz Mohr’s action film Boy Kills World.

Two-time Oscar nominee Adjani will headline a new French-language Netflix series from Nils Antoine Sambuc (Blood of the Vine, Tomorrow is Ours) and directed by Marie Jardillier (Off the Hook). Set at a flower farm in rural Provence, the thriller involves a young mother on the run and the mysterious death of a local patriarch that sparks a murder investigation. Itinéraire Productions and UGC are producing.

Adjani, whose long list of credits includes Andrzej Zulawski’s horror thriller Possession (1981), Jean Becker’s mystery drama One Deadly Summer (1983) and Patrice Chéreau’s period drama Queen Margot (1994), recently appeared alongside Adèle Exarchopoulos, Mélanie Laurent, and Manon Bresch in the Laurent-directed Netflix action comedy Wingwomen.

Larry Tanz, Netflix VP of EMEA Content, announced the two new series during his fireside discussion held at the French TV festival SeriesMania on Tuesday. Tanz appeared to want to counter the impression that the global streamer is pulling back its investment on local language series in Europe, noting that Netflix currently has 40 European projects shooting across the continent.

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